The thing is, there really are not all that many of them. Even if you counted every job at every shipyard, and every job aboard every Jones Act ship, and assumed all of them would be completely lost, it simply is not that many union workers.
But the Jones Act is massively benefiting truck and rail staff (and to some extent, pipelines), so I think there are a lot more workers you would need to compensate. Also, I would expect the truck and rail lobbies to try to save the Jones Act.
Ground shipping is both a complement and a substitute for water shipping, so the net effect isn’t obvious. (Or at least, it’s not obvious to me).
Also, if a certain interest group has not lobbied in a policy area in the past (as I think is the case here?), then that’s nonzero evidence that they will continue to not lobby in that policy area in the future.
Ground shipping is both a complement and a substitute for water shipping, so the net effect isn’t obvious. (Or at least, it’s not obvious to me).
Since overall freight moved wouldn’t change that much (see my comment in this thread), the main economic efficiency of repeal is obtained by using ships instead of ground transport, because ships are cheaper. So overall, ships must be a substitute for ground transport. However, it’s possible that some routes would be nearly all rail right now, and if it switched to primarily ships, there may be some additional trucking involved because it’s not worth putting on a train for a relatively short distance. Have you looked at any studies examining effects on different modes (I haven’t)? If repealing the Jones Act actually did increase trucking, then it could be positive for overall employment as the labour intensity of trucking is so much higher than the other modes.
Also, if a certain interest group has not lobbied in a policy area in the past (as I think is the case here?), then that’s nonzero evidence that they will continue to not lobby in that policy area in the future.
It does look like ground transport has not lobbied, which is surprising to me, but I agree it does provide evidence that they will continue to not lobby.
You’re touching on one of the questions that occurred to me. What do the current and post-Jones transportation flows look like? While I agree that the law must shift some from shipping to truck, rail or pipeline I’m not sure I would expect massive changes here. Do you have some data on that point?
Since I couldn’t find it quickly on the web, GPT o1 estimated that the labour hours per ton kilometer of trucking is about 100 times as much as ships, and rail is just about the same as ships (I would have thought rail would have been at least a few times higher than ships). So based on the historic US and current Europe, maybe water transport in the US would increase an order of magnitude if the Jones act were repealed. As Zvi points out, even though the US ship manufacturing jobs would be lost, there probably would be an increase overall shipping employment because of repairing ships and staffing ships. So let’s say staffing the ships is 3 times as much as the current employment of manufacturing and staffing very few ships. I suspect that most of the lost inland transportation due to the shift from shipping would be rail, but even if 10% of it were trucking, that would mean the loss of jobs in trucking would be 10 times as much as the staffing of the additional ships, and 30 times as much as the employment constructing and staffing the current ships.[1] So if you had to compensate 30 times as many people, it would be much more difficult. Now it is true that the majority of total cost of rail and shipping is energy (it’s about even between energy and labour for trucking), so the large overall economic savings of moving to shipping should be sufficient to compensate all those truckers, but it’s just not nearly the slamdunk that it appeared to be when only looking at marine employment.
Technically not all the freight that would be moved by ships is currently moved by truck/rail/pipeline because a smaller amount gets transported because of the higher cost. But using Zvi’s example of $0.63 per barrel increase, since it is 42 gallons per barrel, that’s 1.5 cents/gallon, or ~0.5% of the total cost, which wouldn’t change quantity demanded very much, well within other uncertainties of this analysis.
But the Jones Act is massively benefiting truck and rail staff (and to some extent, pipelines), so I think there are a lot more workers you would need to compensate. Also, I would expect the truck and rail lobbies to try to save the Jones Act.
Ground shipping is both a complement and a substitute for water shipping, so the net effect isn’t obvious. (Or at least, it’s not obvious to me).
Also, if a certain interest group has not lobbied in a policy area in the past (as I think is the case here?), then that’s nonzero evidence that they will continue to not lobby in that policy area in the future.
Since overall freight moved wouldn’t change that much (see my comment in this thread), the main economic efficiency of repeal is obtained by using ships instead of ground transport, because ships are cheaper. So overall, ships must be a substitute for ground transport. However, it’s possible that some routes would be nearly all rail right now, and if it switched to primarily ships, there may be some additional trucking involved because it’s not worth putting on a train for a relatively short distance. Have you looked at any studies examining effects on different modes (I haven’t)? If repealing the Jones Act actually did increase trucking, then it could be positive for overall employment as the labour intensity of trucking is so much higher than the other modes.
It does look like ground transport has not lobbied, which is surprising to me, but I agree it does provide evidence that they will continue to not lobby.
You’re touching on one of the questions that occurred to me. What do the current and post-Jones transportation flows look like? While I agree that the law must shift some from shipping to truck, rail or pipeline I’m not sure I would expect massive changes here. Do you have some data on that point?
Since I couldn’t find it quickly on the web, GPT o1 estimated that the labour hours per ton kilometer of trucking is about 100 times as much as ships, and rail is just about the same as ships (I would have thought rail would have been at least a few times higher than ships). So based on the historic US and current Europe, maybe water transport in the US would increase an order of magnitude if the Jones act were repealed. As Zvi points out, even though the US ship manufacturing jobs would be lost, there probably would be an increase overall shipping employment because of repairing ships and staffing ships. So let’s say staffing the ships is 3 times as much as the current employment of manufacturing and staffing very few ships. I suspect that most of the lost inland transportation due to the shift from shipping would be rail, but even if 10% of it were trucking, that would mean the loss of jobs in trucking would be 10 times as much as the staffing of the additional ships, and 30 times as much as the employment constructing and staffing the current ships.[1] So if you had to compensate 30 times as many people, it would be much more difficult. Now it is true that the majority of total cost of rail and shipping is energy (it’s about even between energy and labour for trucking), so the large overall economic savings of moving to shipping should be sufficient to compensate all those truckers, but it’s just not nearly the slamdunk that it appeared to be when only looking at marine employment.
Technically not all the freight that would be moved by ships is currently moved by truck/rail/pipeline because a smaller amount gets transported because of the higher cost. But using Zvi’s example of $0.63 per barrel increase, since it is 42 gallons per barrel, that’s 1.5 cents/gallon, or ~0.5% of the total cost, which wouldn’t change quantity demanded very much, well within other uncertainties of this analysis.